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Friday, October 8, 2010

Dang, its been way to long since I have blogged...but school has been hitting me hard the past few weeks. But I have not been under a rock, and have in fact been paying attention to what has been happening in the States over the past few weeks in regards to the increase in LGBT student suicides. As horrible as these suicides are, I believe that they will contribute to the greater good, as they force people to recognize the power of words and the resulting actions that flow from words.

For too long, Christianity has been given a free pass - under the guise of religious freedom - to spout incessant hatred and blatant untruths about LGBT people. Conservative Christianity has been allowed to demonize LGBT people in their attempt to accomplish the establishment of a "Christian state". Not recognizing that we were under serious threat from these factions of religion, the gay community focused instead on political equality, and civil equality. Instead of aiming directly at the vestiges of a hatred that supposedly has the "will of God" behind it, we had become content to instead grant that what church's do in private is acceptable, but that they just should not interfere with the civil realm. This overlooks the impact that conservative "anti-Christian" Christianity has on LGBT people and their emotional health.

Our attacks as a community,instead of only on civil inequality, must now be focused directly on the Church. Will the Christian Right complain? Yes they will. Will they say that we are trying to stifle their free speech and that they are being persecuted against? Yes they will. Should we care? HELL NO. As long as we allow "Christianity" to demonize us with such attitudes as "love the sinner, hate the sin" (an oxymoronic phrase at best when applied to LGBT people), or that our sexual orientation can be changed, or that our relationships are somehow inferior to other relationships, we will never win, and we will never be able to stop the persecution and hatred directed towards people who are different. Too long we have played nice with Religion; well that day is over. Finally the Religious Right is receiving the condemnation that is due to them. Because of the wave of recent suicides they have come under fire and as such have been put in defensive mode. They are on the edge of the cliff, we must now push them over it.

On October 20th wear purple in commemoration of those who have died because of the Church's blatant homophobia and as a symbol that anti-gay harassment is no longer acceptable in the United States.